Silver Mask
by Altaica
Summary: CATSfic...just another loverly play of emotions by yours truly....took a somewhat underused character with a stereotype on him and twisted it around....PLEASE r/r.


Silver Mask  
  
(A/N.....okay, so I was bored, and I had the strange desire to make a certain Jellicle evil...bwaha! Please r/r, I know it's kinda short, but I'm going to do an opposite p.o.v fic about the "villain" at a later date, and they're going to correspond and such...but anyhoo. Enjoy!)  
  
He liked it when the Junkyard was quiet, the kittens and adults safely tucked away, as they were now. With a storm front coming in strong, most everyone had retreated to a den of some sort, to sit and talk with friends or to spend time with family or Mates. Only he was out-of-doors now, and he wanted it that way.  
Storms like this one--lightning forks, rumbles of thunder, whipping winds that left you breathless, torrents of rain--made him feel powerful. He thrived in the violence, relished it, lived for it. There was nothing quite like a storm with its ability to flood, damage, and destroy. His life was entirely too peaceful, watching over the Yard, and making sure that he didn't slip up took so much concentration and energy. Lightning storms like these replenished him, reminded him what he was living for.  
It was a full-time job, making sure that nobody suspected. He knew that no one did. To them, he was just the sweet, slightly naïve caretaker, the sheltered, privileged watcher. He was careful not to get too involved with anyone. Intimacy, trust, closeness, all preceded carelessness. He must never be careless. They couldn't suspect anything.  
His eyes narrowed into slits. They couldn't suspect anything, because it would ruin all of his carefully laid plans. Making Macavity the scapegoat for all wrongs about the Jellicle's small world was a stroke of genius, he had to admit. First framing the Ginger Tom for small crimes until the ultimate one, a murder that he himself had committed, until getting Old Deuteronomy to give him the boot.   
He had been so caring, so compassionate. He had talked to the old geezer with a quiet conviction, laying out the evidence, until there wasn't a seed of doubt in anyone's mind except for Deuteronomy himself. He had seen the look of shock, of panic upon the innocent Macavity's face. The old Tom's stomach had knotted, but you couldn't push aside the evidence upon instinct. And comforting the doddering old fool afterward, on a whim, had completely sealed the deal.  
With green eyes filled with faux worry, he had patted the old Tom's shoulder gently. "It had to be done, Old Deuteronomy, sir," he had said, placing a concerned smile on his face. "You mustn't blame yourself for Macavity's determination to harm the Tribe. You made the right choice."  
Now, standing in the downpour, he chuckled and rubbed his paws together. A wise decision, you old fool. Leave the real danger safely inside the tribe, in a high position, a position that will allow him to come and go as he pleases, to do anything he wanted.  
It was too perfect for words.  
How he loathed the Jellicles, loathed them with every fiber of his very being. He had placed a name upon that hate, the name Macavity, and place the blame with the name.   
If you were to ask him why he hated this loving tribe, he probably would not be able to answer you. Some are just born without compassion. Some are born without any respect for his fellow felines. Some are born sly, willing to do anything to come out on top.  
He had been born all of those things, and he saw no real crime in it. It was, after all, just a part of who he was. He was also an incredible hypocrite. He hated the Jellicles, as individuals and as a Tribe. He hated that tottering fool of a leader, Old Deuteronomy, for his sickening compassion and peaceful ways. And yet, he protected them, even fended off Macavity when he had come around to ask for forgiveness. He had clawed at his own stomach and blamed it on the Ginger Tom at that Ball, and, one dark night in an alleyway, he had accosted that twittering fool, Demeter, blaming it on Macavity when she came running to the Junkyard the next day, blubbering like an idiot.   
"Why, Lady Demeter, only one Jellicle is foul enough to do such a thing to you," he had said sincerely, worried expression in place, one arm protectively around her shoulder. "Macavity."  
There were no chinks in his mask, no mistakes in the façade that he took part in daily. All the Junkyard was a stage, all the Jellicles merely players, and he the ultimate villain. How he loved villains! From Moriarity of Sherlock Holmes fame to Firefrofiddle of Jellicle lore, he aligned himself with villains real and villains fictional, compared, contrasted.   
Someday, he knew, it would not be the name "Macavity!" that Jellicles shouted in fear. It would be his own.  
He stood and laughed, a laugh that would and could chill you to the bone, a laugh that would raise the hairs on the back of your neck and have you looking behind you, examining shadows to see what they hid from the light. A vampire would cringe at such a laugh, a werewolf tuck his tail between his legs and run.   
And one Jellicle did cringe, fur puffing up. That was the same laugh in the alleyway that night, the laugh of the Jellicle called Macavity. At least, Munkustrap had told her that the dastardly Ginger Tom had defiled her so. She had been too scared to recognize a scent, eyes too blurred with tears to see the brute. But she knew that it had to have been Macavity. Who else would it have been?  
She stumbled from the crates that she had taken refuge in, out into the drenching rains of the storm. "Macavity!"  
The Tom up on a junkpile cursed silently to himself before coming down slowly. He held the Gold and Black Queen close to him, protecting her from the foe that was not there and from the rain. "It's alright, Demeter. I'm here now."  
She was crying, or perhaps it was just a trick of the light and rain. "Oh, Munkustrap, I heard him, it was him..."  
"There's nothing there, Demeter. He can't hurt you now." Rocking a sobbing Queen in the storm, the Silver Tabby smiled a satisfied smile.  
But I can.  
And I will.  
  



End file.
